Background
Born from the iconic Pyzel Surfboards, Veia is a key brand within their surf empire, offering top-quality surf accessories like leashes, traction pads, and bags. From humble beginnings to sponsoring world champion surfers, Veia serves both B2C and B2B customers across North America and the world.
The challenge
Veia were using an existing Shopify storefront for their B2C sales but needed a more robust wholesale solution. They required a reliable international distribution method to support their growth into new markets - including multi-location inventory management and multi-channel order processing.
They had been searching for a platform that could meet their evolving needs - namely, boosting their operational efficiency and meeting the changing demands of their wholesale customers. The brand wanted to retain their existing customers while offering enhanced B2B functionality to draw in new suppliers and distributors. This contributed to the overall importance and urgency of implementing a more efficient platform.
Veia’s Sales team wanted the option to establish and assign specific price lists on a customer-group basis. They were already running successful B2B promotions but were looking for a solution that streamlined this process and offered increased accuracy across their campaigns.
Veia were manually handling orders with the stores that stocked their products and were looking for a way to speed this up while reducing the margin for error. The team proudly prioritise customer satisfaction and wanted to upgrade their existing offering with a simplified, faster ordering process.
The solution
SparkLayer’s integration meant the team could get started quickly and add value to their operations from day one. By adding a B2B-only log-in page to their eCommerce website, they’ve been able to keep their wholesale products, price lists, and shipping options hidden from their D2C traffic.
With over a dozen specific price lists, Veia are able to offer tailored, exclusive pricing and product information at a customer group level. They’re now using the Locksmith app alongside SparkLayer to enhance their access settings for B2B-only products. This app allows merchants to control access to their products and is often used by hybrid stores to keep B2B-only items hidden from B2C customers. Veia have also been able to mark certain items available for preorder from specific customers. This feature enables approved customer groups to view and order products ahead of their release dates.
Using our Discount Engine, Veia are now able to set up new promotions on a customer-group basis - including percentage and fixed discounts, free products, coupon codes, and order-level discounts. This functionality continues to support their marketing efforts and seasonal campaigns while speeding up the process and ensuring higher levels of accuracy.
Veia wanted the option to place orders with their B2B buyers from their respective stores, supply offices, and warehouses. The business needed a way to process and approve orders on behalf of their customers in real-time ('masquerade ordering’) - and, using our Sales Agent tool, they’re able to do just that! With early internal adoption, their Sales reps are now entering orders using the Sales Agent feature regularly.
The results
SparkLayer was able to meet the needs of both Veia and their end customers with our intuitive interface. The simplicity of our platform meant that implementation and onboarding processes were speedy and straightforward, leading to high levels of adoption and autonomy from the very beginning. Veia have been able to save time for their internal teams as well as their end customers by removing manual tasks and reducing room for error.
Adding customised price lists has enabled Veia’s customers to view and purchase products quickly at their designated B2B rates. Their team members are able to add custom messaging to different groups, too - this has added a level of personalisation to the ordering process and led to increased customer satisfaction.
Veia have also benefitted from the ability to assign certain shipping methods to each customer - including whether the shipping cost is paid via invoice, via a custom freight account, or upfront. Overall, this has led to increased operational efficiency and a more streamlined accounting process.
The fact that promotions can now be tailored to customers, too, has further added to Veia’s levels of customer adoption and loyalty. Some of their customers will get a discount and free shipping, while others will get a discount but pay for their shipping using a variety of custom methods set up with their account. This automated segmentation makes the process more straightforward for Veia and enables enhanced customisation at every stage of the journey.
Not only has integrating Locksmith enhanced their customer experience offering, but it’s also increased their efficiency levels and helped them better manage inventory - including at a location level. Overall, they’re able to hone their sales approach by targeting select customers for pre-ordering based on account history and other important factors.
Our Sales Agent feature has increased efficiency for Veia’s Sales reps by supporting real-time, in-store ordering with or for their customers. The Sales team are able to view up-to-date stock levels and manage inventory on a location-specific basis - this has reduced the room for error and led to more efficient and accurate orders. Some of Veia’s largest accounts approved the use of this feature early on and are enabling the Sales Agent feature regularly - this has increased convenience and led to a more streamlined purchasing process, with great customer feedback and high levels of repeat orders so far!
Veia’s Customer Service team are also able to quickly jump into customer accounts, add approved items, and rapidly process orders. The Company User permission controls also ensure this is all done in line with customer approval and within their established parameters.
"We looked at a range of other platforms and tested other software suites but they just weren't really doing it for us; there was always something that came up short. Then we tested SparkLayer - it was really intuitive and simple and going in the right direction. Sales Agent adoption has been pretty solid so far - our larger accounts especially are using it more as they can do it all really quickly on their own!" ~ Dan McNamara, President
Explore more
To learn more about Veia, their product range, and the story of their brand, visit their website.
To see how SparkLayer works with Shopify, you can explore via the links below: